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Bruce West (newspaperman)

Bruce West (5 January 1912 - 16 September 1990) was a Canadian newspaper journalist and author. He was one of the best read columnists in Canada during the golden age of newspapers, from the 1930s until the 1970s.

As well as writing a daily column for the Toronto-based national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, he wrote several books, did television narration and wrote fiction for Maclean's magazine. Among his best friends were other legendary names from Canadian newspaper history - Greg Clark, an author, humourist, war veteran and war correspondent who was also West's mentor in the early days, Gillis Purcell, general manager of Canadian Press, and Ralph Allen, managing editor of the Toronto Star and editor of Maclean's Magazine.

Early Life

Bruce West was born and raised in a log house in Huntsville, Ontario. He was a natural storyteller and began writing for the local weekly paper. One day he sent a story by telegraph to all the Toronto papers describing a brawl in the local tavern that sent two brothers to jail where they proceeded to wreck the premises. The Globe, which later merged with The Mail and Empire to become The Globe and Mail, picked it up and he remained loyal to that paper for the rest of his career.

He continued to get stories published in The Globe and frequently travelled by train to Toronto to knock on the newspaper's doors and pitch story ideas. Those were the days when a person was judged by what they could do. Talent and initiative were the only credentials required. West was hired onto the staff of The Globe in 1934 and he quickly became one of its star reporters.

Early Career

His first assignment was rather humble - covering a beekeepers association meeting at the King Edward Hotel, but West quickly became a feature writer and by-lined reporter. One major assignment took him to the lumber camps of northern Ontario during the Great Depression. In 1936 he started a regular feature called Aviation where he could write about the relatively new technology of the air, a special interest of his. During the Second World War, West was loaned by The Globe and Mail to the Wartime Information Board where he served in Ottawa and London and, immediately after the war, in Washington.

Years as a Columnist

West began writing a daily column for The Globe and Mail in 1948 and it continued for 25 years, occupying the top front page of the second section, a prime piece of newspaper real estate. He left it only for a year (1956-57) when he was appointed to manage the paper's new promotion department.

His columns were often humorous and contained gentle observations about everyday life, but he tackled other subjects, too, like the great Canadian flag debate in 1964 where he sparred good-naturedly with then Prime Minister Lester Pearson. West felt that the country's historic connection to Britain should not be excised from the Canadian flag. He spoke about that in columns and on private fishing trips with John Robarts, then premier of the province of Ontario. When the national flag changed from the Red Ensign to the Maple Leaf flag in 1965, Robarts adopted the old Red Ensign as the flag of Ontario to keep alive the British roots of the province's history.

West was also sent on assignment and covered such important events as the Cuban revolution in 1959, the Springhill mining disaster of 1958, the 1949 fire on the luxury cruise ship, the SS Noronic, in Toronto Harbour, and several royal visits. One of his favourite assignments was to the Canadian Arctic, where he travelled several times and wrote front-page feature stories, often accompanied by his own photography. During his career he travelled to over 20 countries in Europe, Africa, South America and the Caribbean as well as coast-to-coast-to-coast in Canada.

Books

• A Change of Pace, University of Toronto Press (1956)
• Toronto, ISBN-10 0385026250, Doubleday Canada Limited (1967)
• Around Toronto, ASIN B002F4QUO4, Doubleday Canada Limited (1969) (with illustrator John Richmond)
• The Happy Gamble: The History of the Canadian National Sportsmens Show ASIN B002FDAQDQ (1972)
• The Firebirds: How bush flying won its wings, Ministry of Natural Resources, Ontario (1974)
• The Man Who Flew Churchill, ISBN 0070777578, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, Toronto (1975)

Narration

Bruce West wrote and voiced the narration for the following documentaries which aired nationally on CBC-TV:

• Normandy Dream, Artistic Productions Limited (1978)
• Spitfire Pilot, Artistic Productions Limited (1981)

External Links

• http://www.canadahistoryproject.ca/1939-45/1939-45-04-d-day.html, excerpt from Bruce West's narration of Normandy Dream
• www.library.utoronto.ca/fisher/collections/findaids/west.pdf, a collection of the papers of Bruce West